


Some Kind of Wonderful

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Babies, Children of Characters, Cute Kids, F/M, Family, Gen, Romance, Summer Solstice, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 18:56:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15007250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: “It’s crazy, Lil,” Kate whispers close to the baby’s skin. “So crazy late and the sun’s not even down yet.”





	Some Kind of Wonderful

**Author's Note:**

> Solstice story, set June 21, 2018. A sort of loose sequel to Invincible Summer? 

 

He thinks it’s wonderful at first. He knew it would be, and it is. It’s _so_ wonderful as the gravel crunches under the wheels of the ridiculously rugged beast of a vehicle he’d insisted on renting.

Lily stirs as Kate gently eases her arms out of the carseat straps. The baby yawns hugely, and her eyes go from furiously scrunched up to wide and gorgeously golden as she catches sight of the sky. Her head tips back into Kate’s waiting palm. Her mouth is an astonished _O_ of delight as she takes in the high up, heavy purple velvet. Her chin tips down and her eyes go wider still as she catches sight of the scarlet blaze of the horizon behind the cabin.

“It’s crazy, Lil,” Kate whispers close to the baby’s skin. “So crazy late and the sun’s not even down yet.”

He hangs back as she sways from foot to foot. As she steps oh-so-carefully up on to the porch with their daughter in her arms and lingers at the railing. He hangs back, even though he’d love to know what they’re whispering about as Kate leans far out over the edge to peek around the rustic wall. They’re both in beautiful silhouette, and he’d love to know, but he lets them have their secrets.

It’s wonderful at first.

* * *

 

It’s a little less wonderful when they’ve barely closed their eyes and Lily’s awake again. Slightly less wonderful when she’s suddenly, non-negotiably, volubly awake.

“I’ve got her,” he says, his mouth running ahead of his brain. It’s nothing new, he thinks, more than a little punch drunk on exhaustion, but it isn’t. His mouth running ahead of his brain is just another morning.

“Vacation,” Kate mutters back. She struggles to lift to her elbows, but he plants a broad palm between her shoulder blades. “You always have her. I’m supposed to . . .” She trails off, caught in her own twisted logic. “Supposed to.”

“A compelling argument, Beckett.” He laughs sleepily into her neck. He inhales the scent of her and fantasizes about five, ten, fifteen more minutes, even as Lily’s babbling escalates, suddenly and sharply. “But I’ve got her.”

He swings to his feet and makes his way over the pack ‘n play. She’s yelling by then. Not crying, not fussing, just . . . yelling.

“Shhhhhh.” He reaches down for her, satisfied that the touch of his hands transforms the wail she’d been working on into nothing more than a sharp grunt. Satisfied that the glance over his shoulder reveals Kate greedily clutching the covers right up to her chin and surrendering to sleep. “No need for that, Lil. No need.”

He lifts her onto his hip and heads instinctively toward the kitchen. Toward coffee and something like sentience, but his limbs, his eyelids, feel unusually heavy.

“Up late.” He blinks at the baby, not sure if it’s an excuse or an explanation. “You were up _so_ late watching the sunset. That must be what the yelling’s about. That must be why Daddy feels like something ran him over.” 

Lily shrieks in answer. It’s short and sharp and loud. It’s _demanding,_ and she squirms in his arms. She kicks at his midsection with dangerous little feet.

“Whoa, baby girl!” He tries to still her. Tries to bounce and tickle and cajole her into the mellow morning register he’s used to, but she’s having none of it. She’s trying to writhe her way right out of his arms, and it’s more of a struggle than it should be. “What’s up? What’s up with you?”

He heads for the cabin’s back door as her volume starts to climb again. He casts a backward glance at Kate shifting uneasily in the bed. It sends him over the threshold, though he’s shivering as they step through. Immediately shivering in the breeze coming right off the lake, but Lily is snug in her sleeper. She’s grunting and something close to satisfied as she tips back in his arms and crows up a the sky.

“Dark.” He can’t quite believe it. He tips his own head back and he just can’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that it’s still dark—that there are actual _stars_ still twinkling overhead. “Lilliput, it is still _dark_ out. Not morning at all. What’re you doing?”

Struggling, that’s what she’s doing. Still. Again. Squirming and crying out. Ramping up to a yell, and he can’t figure it out. She’s a champion sleeper. An absolute _hero_ of somnolence, and he hasn’t the faintest idea what to do, so he paces.

He paces the width of the back porch. He winces at the damp, cold wood under his bare feet as he takes her down to the pier that juts out into the water. He does the math in his wooly, coffee-deprived and he still can’t figure it out. New York to Alberta. It’s only two hours, and he can’t figure it out.

“What, Lil, what?” he asks her over and over, but it’s that first flat-out yell all over again, or it’s about to be. Every second, it seems like it’s about to be. He paces back to the cabin, and that makes it worse. That makes her face scrunch up, so he retreats. “A ride? Do you want to go for a ride in the big car?”

It’s a desperate gambit. A foolish one, given that the car hasn’t worked since those first, mercifully few days before they’d figured her out. Since she was an absolutely tiny thing, and anyway he’d need shoes for that. He’d need keys, and for the love of God, _coffee_ for a ride to be even remotely responsible, and there’s no way Kate’ll sleep through any of that.

“Not a ride. Offer rescinded,” he tells Lily. “Daddy doesn’t have shoes. Or a shirt. And it’s still dark out. Do you know that?” His mouth cracks open in a huge yawn. Her fists are inside in an instant. Her fingers are hooked over his bottom teeth and they’re staring at each other in furious surprise. “Dark,” he sputters as he reclaims his lower jaw. “I’m telling you, kid, it’s still _dark_ out.”

But it isn’t, he realizes. He follows the upward tilt of Lily’s chin, and somehow they’re on the front side of the cabin. Somehow they’ve wandered in a wide, desperate circle, and it’s _not_ dark on this side. It’s fiery and brilliant over the mountains in the distance.

“Sunrise,” he whispers. “Is that what you wanted?”

Silence is her answer. Stillness, instant and entire.

He backs his way carefully up the stairs and on to the porch. He takes an eternity settling back on to the creaking wooden swing and longer than that steadying her in his lap with one hand while he roots in the solid wooden chest for something—anything—to offer a little warmth.

“Yes,” he hisses when he comes up with a scratchy, plaid blanket. It’s damp and ancient, something he’d probably set fire to by the light of day, but he pulls at around his bare shoulders now. He tucks it under Lily’s elbows as he settles her against his chest.

“I guess it is.” He murmurs against the back of her head. His nose wrinkles as the breeze riffles her wispy hair. She babbles quietly. Contentedly, and it’s . . . a little less wonderful, but wonderful all the same. “I guess you wanted sunrise.”

* * *

 

“We don’t have to do things.” He’s grumbling. He doesn’t mean to be, but the morning is catching up with him. The briefest of nights, and he’s grumbling. “There’s no law.”

“Beckett’s law,” she says, rubbing the sunscreen vigorously between her palms. “Lily’s law.” She shoots him a wicked glance as she glides the tips of her fingers over the baby’s skin, leaving broad white trails as she goes. “On vacation, we do things.”

“You’re out of your jurisdiction, Captain. And anyway vacation’s about _not_ doing things, right Lil?” He waggles his fingers furiously, heading for the irresistible swell of her belly where the stretchy, flowered material of her swim top rides up. She ducks away from him, the little turncoat, but he soldiers on. “Vacation is about babies who were up before dawn—before _Canada_ dawn—taking a nice long nap so Mama and Daddy can . . .”

He trails off when he registers that Kate’s hands have gone still. That her chin has drooped suddenly to her chest.

“Hey.” He steadies Lily where they have her perched on the edge of the kitchen counter. He steadies her with one hand, and reaches for Kate with the other. He reels her in. “What, Kate? What’s that for?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing, just”—she laughs at herself, shakes her head—“Did she love it? The sun coming up? I shouldn’t have missed it. I already miss—”

“You don’t.” He kisses the top of her head. “Kate, you don’t _miss_ things because you’re at work. You just get—we both get—different things. Firsts and bests and funniests, we just get different ones.”

“Funniests?” She snorts against his chest. “Funniests is not a word.”

“Totally a word.” He tickles her ribs. “Trust me, I’m a writer.”

“Writer.” She rolls her eyes. Her face is still buried against him, but he just _knows_ she’s rolling her eyes. “You’re out of your jurisdiction.”

Lily squawks just then. She yells wriggles and nearly goes sailing off the damned counter, but Kate just laughs. She catches her up in her arms and laughs.

“Daddy’s totally out of his jurisdiction, right, Lil?”

* * *

 

They do things. He’s dragging, and she’s dragging, though a little less. It’s a weary slog, but it’s wonderful, too. Wonderful in its own way.

They take turns coaxing Lily out into the water in her huge, ridiculous life jacket. They let her holler at the indignity of the lake reaching up to tickle her chin when the wake of a distant paddleboat reaches their little strip of mostly private beach. They holler along with her, laughing hard and splashing each other. Trading dirty looks that promise later retribution.

They dry her off and lather her up again. They wrestle her into criminally cute denim overalls and set off on a hike. They’re in a valley, technically. Pyramid Mountain behind them, and Mt. Colin off to the northeast, with the Snaring River in between. The park is wide and flat and sprawling, but it’s not New York. It’s not mostly even pavement and rhythms they all know. 

They take turns struggling with the damned baby backpack, but she _hates_ it _,_ apparently. Lily hates it, and they give up on it, even though it cost a fortune. Even though she’s wriggling and sweaty and impossible to manage on the uneven ground. They swap her back and forth, laughing and bickering. Tugging each other along and giving in to the awkward boneless weight of her tipping her whole body back to babble up to the light filtering through the leaves.  

They eat, or try to anyway. They spend an hour—two hours, going on three—chasing her around a vast expanse of blankets they’ve spread out in the vain hope of making a dent in the ridiculously lavish picnic the cabin’s owners had left for them, but she’s _crawling_ all of a sudden. She’s rolling so adroitly, dragging herself forward like a fierce little soldier on her suddenly strong elbows that he hums the _Mission: Impossible_ theme while Kate pelts him with grapes and pretends not to laugh. She rises up on to her knees with a triumphant roar and shows them her well-padded backside as she scurries away from them at speed.

They take her back to the cabin, then. They’re both worn out, dangerously so. It’s well past midday, though the sun is still high in the sky, and they’ve been up for hours. Lily’s been up for _hours_ and hours, and still, she’sdangerously _not_ worn out, but they take her back anyway.

They set her in the pack ‘n play, and she yells. They draw the curtains tight and pin them together with binder clips. They tip toe around the cabin, freezing when an errant floorboard creaks. They sit absolutely still on the bed, in the chairs facing away from her, on the floor. They turn up the white noise machine, and she yells.

They set her gingerly on the bed between them. They lay her on Kate’s chest, then his. They set her on a pile of blankets—a wholly independent island of her own on the floor, hemmed in by suitcases and furniture. And she yells.

She doesn’t cry or fuss or whine, she yells at top volume until Kate, at long last, picks her up.

“Where?” He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor. He can’t remember why. He can’t remember if it was a plan or he just finally dropped in place. “What?”

“Out,” Kate says. She presses a firm hand to the top of his head as he clumsily tries to rise. “You stay. I’ll take her . . . out.”

“You’re sure?”

He’s dragging himself up on to the bed. He’s collapsing, even though he knows she’s not sure. She’s bleary eyed and run ragged, but Lily has her by the ears now. She’s smacking slobbery kisses against her mother’s chin and babbling at something slightly less than top volume.

“You’re sure?” he murmurs again. His eyes are barely open, and he’s no good to anyone.

“Lily is.” She shoots him a quiet, tired smile from the kitchen door. She’s outlined in gold and blue. The two of them are, and it’s wonderful.“Lily is definitely sure.”

And she is. Lily is absolutely sure she wants to be _out,_ so they are. The two of them are out together.

They sit on the back steps together, quiet for the most part. Content, and comparatively still, though Lily reaches for the light. She reaches for the water when she happens to notice it splashing in the distance. She reaches up and out, crowing softly,and Kate’s happy enough to rise and follow the urge. Happy enough to make a trip or two or four out to the end of the pier.

She’s happy enough to trail her own bare feet in the lake. Happy enough to dangle Lily by her armpits so her toes just dance over the surface of the rippling blue, though she glances around like someone might catch her doing wrong.She’s happy enough to amble in slow circles around and around the cabin, babbling nothing and everything to Lily and listening intently as the baby babbles back.

She’s happy enough, though she lets a breath out—a huge breath—when she hears the creak of his weight on porch behind her. She sags against him as he settles at her side on the step. Smiles as Lily launches herself at him with loud, wide-eyed delight.

“Really? Really, Lil?” He gathers her up. He nods seriously, answering back as the baby’s voice rises and falls, a better-than-good facsimile of real conversation. “You did all that?”

“All that,” Kate puts in. She reaches out to tug at one chubby baby ankle. “We did _all_ that. Because it’s vacation.”

 

* * *

They eat out on the back porch. It’s creaky  and awkward and uncomfortable, but the sun setting with aching slowness over the water keeps Lily content enough that they’re able to snatch the salvageable things from their doomed picnic. Lily deigns to sprawl on a blanket on the lawn with her bottle popping it out of her mouth now and then to tug at him, then her, then him again, because they sprawl, too, one on each side of her, and it’s comfortable. 

It’s restful with his arm around her shoulder. With Lily kicking, but content between them as it gets late, later, latest.

“We should take her in,” Kate offers eventually. Dubiously. “We should put her in bed.”

“We should put _us_ in bed.” He laughs hollowly up at the still-light sky. “I don’t know _what_ we should do with her.” He cracks open one eye and half lifts his head. He peers down at Lily, and Lily peers back, her eyes shining gold in the protracted twilight. “Kryptonite maybe. Pretty clear Canada’s yellow sun gives her super powers.”

“Kryptonite?” Her head swivels sharply toward him. She glowers. “You’d use Kryptonite on our daughter?”

“Medicinal Kryptonite,” he protests weakly. “Homeopathic amounts of . . . civilized New York Kryptonite.”

“New York Kryptonite.” She snorts. It’s tired and ugly.Her belly aches. Her ribs and limbs ache. She’s tired. _So_ tired. “Like a bagel?”

“A bagel.” There’s awe in his voice. Reverence that’s more than a little surreal in the creeping violet twilight. “Or a slice. You’d sleep for a slice, wouldn’t you, Lil?”

“A potsticker.” She turns on her side. She reaches across the baby for him. She toys with the hem of his shirt and lets her fingers slip beneath to find warm skin. “Potsticker’d buy us a solid eight hours.”

“It’s good, though, right?”

The question is long enough in coming thatshe’s blinking at him. Blinking at both of them, because Lily’s wormed her way up his chest. She’s parked herself flush against him, though she’s twisted half around, her eyes fixed on the sky.

“Vacation.” He blinks back at her. His gaze skitters from her to the baby to the cabin to the still-damnably light sky. “Even with the bugs and the no food and no sleep and the yelling . . . I don’t even know what the yelling is about.” He shakes his head. He looks away then right back at her. “But it’s good?”

“Wonderful.” She pushes up on her elbows. She crawls toward him, not caring that the blanket’s scratchy. That Lily’s squalling in protest as Kate’s body temporarily blots out  the stupid, Canadian yellow sun  lingering on the horizon. She drags her body right next to his and makes a tight knot out of the three of them. “Castle, it’s wonderful.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I wrote and wrote and most of what I started with didn't make it into this. But. Solstice?


End file.
